


I can't take it alone

by twinSky



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Murder, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Suicide, and also, both intentional and not, hhhere we go, thanks route xx shintaro for being a depressing mother fucker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 10:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15839217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinSky/pseuds/twinSky
Summary: Because what’s the point of existing when she’s gone?What’s the point of being alive when it’s all your fault anyways?-The life and times of Route XX Shintaro Kisaragi





	I can't take it alone

**Author's Note:**

> I had wanted to write this in time for August 15th, except I like, completely forgot about it until like August 20th. But it's still August at least, so not as bad as it could've been. That said, I haven't actively consumed kagepro content since 2014, so apologies if there's any inaccuracies with timeline stuff and what not. 
> 
> Fun things looked up for this fic: japanese school years (highschool isn't compulsory, i feel like i knew that but still neat), is grade skipping a thing in Japan (it isnt). And rewatching lost time memory 500 times and toumei answer about half as much.
> 
> Less fun things: the very premise of this fic. Shintaro is a character that to this day I love, listening to lost time memory still makes me want to cry. But as much as I love this boy who learned to move on and move forward, to find happiness in his present instead of clinging to his past -I always find myself thinking about route XX Shintaro when the song rolls around on my ipod. So here's a fic on this sad sad boy, partly canon, and partly headcannon

Shintaro is six and his teacher congratulates his parents on how quickly he picks up on things, on how quietly he sits at his seat and how easily he follows instructions.

Shintaro is six and the other kids mock him for being a teachers pets; even the nicer kids stop inviting him to hang out with them when all he ever does is ignore them.

Shintaro is six and he wishes he could stay at home all day.

 

-

 

As he grows older the teasing stops –his lack of reaction seems to bore them enough to dissuade it.

(He was bored of it too, but he thinks that might be different.)

The teasing stops and so does the teachers praise, his silence though before was ideal is now ‘disrespectful’ and ‘rebellious’. The complaints never reach his parents though, his grades still perfect and thus his behaviour though irritating is not worth reprimand.

His parents remain oh so proud and Momo, just starting school, claps excitedly at every perfect score he brings home and with a big bright smile tells him she’s going to be just as smart as him.

The people around him grow, they change, but it all remains so static in his eyes.

 

-

 

He’s eleven and his parents have him tested at his teacher’s behest.

‘He’s so bright,’ she had gushed, as if his intelligence had in any way been thanks to her, ‘but he’s so disenchanted with class, maybe I could try to get something closer to his level.’

The examiner smiled as he handed his parents back the results. An IQ of 161*, a certifiable genius. His parents cheer, vowing immediately to go celebrate.

They buy way too much food for just the four of them and won’t stop talking about smart their boy is. He picks absently at his food while Momo laughs good-naturedly as if he doesn’t notice how her eyes grow bitter whenever their parents aren’t looking. He sighs, wondering when this will end so he can go back to his room and not come out until school starts up again next week.

(Secretly, he’s glad that the Japanese don’t have the concept of skipping grades –he’d be just as bored in a whole new setting with people who aren’t used to just ignoring him. And Shintaro has learned the easiest way to get by is to just go with the flow and have as little people notice him as possible.)

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

His father dies.

Momo is inconsolable for weeks, she cries and cries as if the whole thing is somehow her fault. He stays by her side, he’s not good at offering comfort but just giving her a hand to hold seems to help.

It seems to do something at least, while their mother finds another job, another two, to help keep them afloat now that their father is gone.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Momo, he thinks as he watches her scurry from one end of the room to another, has never looked so simultaneously stressed out and excited in all the time she’s been alive.

Somehow, when he wasn’t paying attention, Momo signed on to become an idol and from one day to another she’s become a verifiable sensation. Her first real big gig is this weekend. In some grand stadium he’s never heard of that she’s somehow managed to sell out even though she’s been on the idol scene for less than a month.

There’s going to be confetti canon involved and Momo thought it would be sweet if she cut out the confetti herself for her first big concert. Except, as always, Momo has severely underestimated how much time and effort that would take and so now all three of them are in the living room trying to finish this in time.

He’s gotten so into the rhythm of it that he’s barely even paying attention anymore, so when Momo yells out his name sounding somewhere between terrified and reprimanding he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“You stupid older brother! You cut yourself,” She says, rushing over to lift up his hand to show a small cut on the tip of his finger –their mother coos worriedly excusing herself to kitchen to grab a wet cloth and a band-aid.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he sighs to the both of them. Sure, it might be bleeding a lot but the wound isn’t all that deep –it’ll be scabbed over by tomorrow at the latest.

 “You bleeding is always a big deal –anyone bleeding is!” Momo insists, looking torn between scolding him or continuing to fuss over him. Shintaro would vote for the former if he had a choice. At least angry Momo would get off his back.

And besides, he thinks, staring at the steadily flowing cut, red is a nice colour.

Red, well red isn’t boring.

 

-

 

That night he dreams of floating in a sea of deep deep red that pulls him in far and then spits him out right before he can drown.

When he wakes up, he finds himself feeling not much at all.

 

-

 

He’s fifteen and there’s a girl in his class that won’t leave him alone. Most of these kids he’s known his whole life, and as such they leave him alone. The only time he’s ever interacted with his classmates by this point is group projects and even then everyone involved is perfectly fine with just letting him do most of the work to keep interaction to a minimum.

Shintaro likes the lifestyle he’s built around himself. Or, well, like might be too strong a word but when everything around him is so boring and predictable he doesn’t see the point of changing anything. It’ll all fade soon enough into the monotony of life so why bother getting worked up about it.

It’s a philosophy Shintaro has been living by for years. A passive existence to his family and a non-entity to basically everyone else.

He doesn’t want to get attached to anything, can’t see the point of it in the first place.

 

If only this girl would catch the memo.

 

-

 

The girl’s name is Ayano Tateyama and she does not get the memo.

Telling her to go away, calling her annoying, none of it deters her in her efforts to get to know him.

She is bright and bubbly and wants Shintaro to see that there’s more to life than the practical nothing he has come to see it as. Shintaro is almost certain that she is his antithesis sent down by God to finally lead him to his early death.

And god if death would not be a welcome mercy to his pointless existence on this planet.

As if sensing his morbid thoughts she reaches over and pinches one of his cheeks hard. Her gaze is sheepish when he turns to glare at her, hiding a blush beneath her scarf.

“Sorry, it’s what I do to my siblings when they would get mopey.”

“I’m not mopey!” He refutes indignantly, and even if he was he’s not going to be treated like some snot-nosed brats.

Ayano laughs at that, bright and sweet like bells, and Shintaro ruthlessly squashes that thought down. People aren’t worth the trouble, and Ayano Tateyama definitely doesn’t even come close to making him rethink that.

 

-

 

Except, Ayano doesn’t stop bugging him, she sits with him at lunch and asks questions about the math lesson they just had. And, when lunch ends and she still hasn’t gotten the hang of it, somehow convinces him to go with her to the library to help her study a bit.

She shows him funny videos, and keeps turning his test papers into paper cranes that for some reason he stops throwing away.

When she latches onto his arm after almost tripping in the hall he doesn’t shove her away. He for some reason tells her something silly Momo did the other day, and when he notices how much she liked the candy he had for dessert buys two the next time he goes to the convenience store.

She says that they’re friends now with a wide smile, and that maybe soon she’ll finally convince him to change the outlook he has on life. Shintaro may begrudgingly concede to the first point, but he doesn’t see the second one happening anytime soon.

The world is still boring and predictable, not any harder to figure out than the tests they give out at school. Ayano might disagree, but that’s just because she actually thinks the school tests are hard.

He’s pretty soon one of them would sooner die then seeing things the others’ way.

 

-

 

(Later on he’ll spend so much time regretting everything he’s said and done. Over and over again until it all threatens to swallow him whole.

And by that point, he’d be begging for it to happen.)

 

 

-

 

His friend group triples in size, he’s not sure how this happened but he does know he hates it. He alternates between completely ignoring them, yelling at Takane for being an absolute moron, and wishing he could just straight up leave.

 

Life settles into its own steady beat again, and Shintaro would almost dare to say that he’s… happy. That maybe things aren’t as boring as he was thinking.

 

-

 

 

 

 

Sometimes he’s sure his life was meant to end in tragedy.

 

 

 

 

-

 

He’d already lost people he’d almost consider friends before. He was an idiot for thinking that she was somehow safe from this awful world they live in.

 

-

 

Ayano for as long as he’s known her has always been smiling, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes shyly, but always, _always_ smiling.

So to see her at her seat after class crying is a sight so bewildering he’s almost not sure it’s happening. But it is real, she is there, and he has no idea what to do about it.

Shintaro Kisaragi was not built with the emotional capacity for this, he could barely help his own sister after their father died what could he possibly do here when he doesn’t even understand the situation.

He backs away slowly, unsure, and resolves to bring it up tomorrow when she’s calmed down a bit.

 

 

-

 

In some fancy poet’s words they might say she flew. But Shintaro is not a poet, nor is he fanciful or anything but realistic. She fell, she fell and she fell until there was no air left to fall into and life was cut as abruptly as her fall was.

Again and again he’ll replay the day before wondering that if maybe he’d reached out instead of shying away she’d still be here with them (with him). If somehow, just maybe, he could’ve changed her mind and stopped her fall.

If maybe, instead of pushing her away at every turn he could’ve let her know how much he cared about her and what she’s done for him. If maybe they would have been closer, he might have seen behind her smile to find the girl underneath who was capable of shedding such sad looking tears.

But what if’s are pointless, just like everything else in this godforsaken world.

 

-

 

(In some myths, in some stories, at the end of your life you are judged for every act you have committed. It is weighed against your soul to see if it is too heavy to achieve everlasting peace and bliss.

He knows he’s not  that great a person, but if there was ever any act that would damn his soul forever, he thinks that might’ve been it.)

 

-

 

The world had always been boring, but now it seems dull, listless, even more pointless than before.

The flower sitting atop the desk next to him feels like a mockery, the tears of his classmates, the mournful silence whenever her name is skipped during the morning rollcall. All of it just feels like a bunch of pretty lies strung together to make their grief have meaning.

Still, still, there is nothing more he hates than the looks they give him. Sure on the surface there is pity, there is comfort, but Shintaro is many things but an idiot is not one of them. He knows what they say when they think he’s not listening, the cruel thoughts that hide behind placid smiles.

He hates it, he hates all of it.

But most of all, he hates himself, hates how he can’t even deny that just maybe they’re right.

 

-

 

Shintaro is pointless, pointless, pointless.

As meaningless as life is, as existence is, so why should he bother to try.

Why should he leave his house, his room, when there’s absolutely nothing waiting for him out there?

So he doesn’t.

At least here, there’s nothing but him, and his memory of her. And he’d sooner die then let her memory fade away.

Because what’s the point of existing when she’s gone?

~~What’s the point of being alive when it’s all your fault anyways?~~

 

-

 

The other day he was almost sure he saw Ayano at his window telling him it was all his fault, just a few hours ago he’s sure he must have been dreaming but she was here in the room cursing his very existence.

He’s hallucinating, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

 

-

 

His mother leaves a computer at his door, he’s not sure if it’s supposed to convince him to leave or stay in more but he becomes obsessed with it.

The internet is a whole world at his fingertips, one he can access without leaving his room, without having to interact with people that might make him forget about her. He doesn’t need anything but the internet, this room, and the memory of a girl who smiled so sweetly.

 

-

 

~~(In another place (the same place), another him (the same him) discovers music and it gives him an outlet that he’ll never find.)~~

 

-

 

Despite all his protection he’s somehow downloaded a virus (a nuisance) and she (it) just won’t’ go away. He’s tried deleting her, restarting his computer, he even tried resetting the whole thing and yet every time. Every single time. There she is waiting for him with a large cheeky grin the word master spilling from her lips as if it’s just the most natural thing.

He screams and he yells but she doesn’t leave no matter what he says.

_‘I’m Ene, and you’re stuck with me Master!’_

He sighs, relenting to her existence and going to bed –maybe he’ll dream of better times, maybe he’ll dream of her and never wake up.

Because living without her is a nightmare, because being left behind, being left alone, is unbearable.

 

-

 

~~(In another place (the same place), with another him (the same him), they’d become friends of a sort, she’d help him smile, to laugh. She’d help him move on. But he doesn’t want to move on, doesn’t need to move on.)~~

 

-

 

His hair is growing long enough to become a nuisance; constantly falling over his face when he tries to lean over his keyboard. He could just go to Momo’s room and steal a hair-tie but he doesn’t want to deal with her yelling when she notices it’s gone. And besides it (she) has been mocking him for it for days now and he’s tired of dealing with that.

People cut their own hair all the time, how hard could it really be?

He grabs a pair of scissors from his nightstand and heads to the bathroom ignoring it’s calls as to where a NEET like him could possibly be going. He stares at dull eyes through the mirror and sighs, lifting up his arms and beginning to cut.

He’s just about done, just clumsily trying to cut a few strands when he feels a stinging sensation sudden and sharp enough to make him drop the scissors as he brings his hand forward to clutch it against his chest.

He uncurls it slowly, revealing a long cut along his palm bleeding profusely. He stares at it blankly moving his other hand to turn on the tap before pausing almost entranced.

Red. Red like the clips she always wore and the scarf she always had wrapped around her neck. Red like the colour she left behind when she fell.

He’s not sure how long he stands there simply staring at his bleeding palm but eventually he drifts back to his room and sits back down in front of his computer flipping open a tab.

“Welcome back Master, you we’re gone awhile what were y -  _you’re bleeding!_ ” It screeches, pixelated face pressing as close as it can to the screen. Shintaro winces at the volume, pressing his hands to his ears and smearing blood across his face in the process.

Ah, he had forgotten to wash the blood off his hand.

“It’s fine, it’s just a cut.” He replies, voice coming out just as dull as his eyes had looked in the mirror.

It startles at the words, flinching back and Shintaro can’t help but think that for being fake, a facsimile of human emotion and existence, it sometimes comes off as strikingly real. Not that Shintaro’s going to fall for it, especially not when it won’t stop trying to get him to leave the house.

“It’s not fine, you’re still bleeding! Did you even bother cleaning it? Put a band-aid on it or something, Master!”

He rolls his eyes, pushing away from his desk and winces slightly at the pressure against his wound. “Shut up, can you calm down? I’m going to sleep.”

“Sleep?! Master you’re injured you have to treat it!” It screeches once again, forcing his speakers to blare an alarm. He ignores it, smothering his head underneath a pillow. Either his sister or mother will bang on his door to shut it up, or it’ll grow bored enough on it’s own.

After all, no one really cares about him anymore –and the feeling is quite is mutual.

Shintaro doesn’t much care for himself either.

 

-

 

That night he dreams of her, he always always dreams of her, but tonight her eyes are a blazing red as she smiles sadly at him.

Red like her hair clips, red like her scarf, red like the blood flowing through his veins just waiting to be spilled.

When he wakes, he can feel a smile on his face. Or maybe it’s a grimace, he’s not sure he can tell the difference between them anymore.

 

-

 

It’s been more annoying lately. Ever since he accidentally cut himself, ever since that wasn’t the last time. Constantly chattering away to uncaring ears, playing what it calls funny videos and still, _still_ , insisting that maybe if he just left the house he’d cheer up a bit.

It’s getting so very _annoying_ , _pointless_ , _frustrating_.

So what if he’s covered in cuts, so what? He thinks, slicing a nice thin cut along his forearm. So what, he thinks, as the blood bubbles through a nice deep red cutting through this dull existence of his.

So what? So what? _So what?_

Life is pointless, meaningless, and every day feels like he’s walking through a haze with no end in sight.

He’s getting bored of still breathing when there’s nothing left tying him to this world.

He’s getting tired of being _alive_.

He cuts another line, deeper than usual and hisses at the pain that stings through him. Another tally, another mark against his wretched worthless soul.

-

 

“Are you okay?” It wails, posed in a mockery of genuine worry and concern. And Shintaro thinks that maybe if he were anyone but himself he’d be able to take comfort in its fake worry and tremble.

But Shintaro is no fool, and he won’t be swayed by false words. It’s all just an act anyways.

He turns away from it and goes back to sleep. Only there does he ever feel some kind of peace and happiness with the world. Only there is she still there –the only person in his life that ever felt like they mattered.

The only person in this world that in the end was worth giving a damn about.

And his dreams are all he has left of her, he doesn’t know what he would do without them. Doesn’t know why he even bothers waking up anymore when she’s all that he wants.

That’s right.

That’s right, that is all he needs. And anything that gets in the way of that? It doesn’t need to exist anymore –doesn’t need to exist at all.

It – _Ene_ – doesn’t need to live; it’s not like it’s alive in the first place.

 

 

 

When he awakes it’s still calling out to him, frantic voice grating on his ears. He doesn’t c _are,_ it’s attempts will never get through to him, all of its words useless platitudes that are nothing but a hindrance. Nothing but a needless annoyance.

So he reaches out, and for a second its expression flits into something other than the worry and regret that has dogged it as of late. It almost brightens as if it thinks maybe it has finally won. If Shintaro were capable of feeling anything but an empty haze he thinks he might’ve laughed at its artificial glee, it’s deadly naivety.

But instead he feels nothing, is nothing, as he watches that glee turn to fear as he reaches out to grab something that doesn’t exist and finds something solid instead. Feels nothing as he squeezes and squeezes until something snaps, it, him, the whole world.

It snaps, and everything disappears around him.

(It’s not real, it’s not real, so then why does he feel just as bad as he did when he first heard the news about Ayano.

Why does he feel like everything’s crumbling around him all over again.)

 

-

 

Shintaro is eighteen years old and he’s a horrible rotten person. A boy, a man, with not a shred of kindness in his heart. He’s not surprised it ends like this

~~(A different Shintaro (the same Shintaro) is eighteen years old and long before this moment had been able to move on, move forward.)~~

 

-

 

It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and he hadn’t even known he had more hope to lose, a last string of sanity left to snap and leave him even worse than he already was.

His breath starts and stops, heaving gasps that leave him stumbling backwards as he crashes to the floor. Just really? What is he even doing anymore. Maybe he really should just end it all.

Shintaro’s never cared for this boring predictable world. Maybe it’s time he finally left it behind, maybe she’ll be there waiting for him at the other side, maybe there this heavy pressure on his chest, his mind, his soul, will finally disappear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

He sighs and collects himself if just barely, grabbing his well-used and loved scissors.

 

 

.

 

 

~~(A different Shintaro (the same Shintaro), in a different time (at the same time) watches a friend he had grown to care about possessed and deranged as he lifts up a gun.)~~

 

 

.

 

 

 He grips them tightly, the only sense of stability as the world around him burns with all the mistakes he’s made.

He raises his arms.

 

 

.

 

 

~~(At the same time another him (the same him) dashes forwards as the other lifts a gun to his head, intent on someone’s death, it doesn’t matter who’s.~~

~~This him, he won’t let someone else he cares about die again when he can help it.)~~

 

 

.

 

 

He plunges them in, one swift movement.

He falls.

 

 

.

 

 

~~(A gunshot rings out, the other him (this same him) makes it in time.~~

~~He falls.)~~

 

 

.

 

 

(On August 15th at around thirty minutes past noon two lives (the same life) end in tandem. The haze swallows them whole, as it has done to so many before them, ready to set just one of them free.

There a girl waits patiently (oh so patiently, for so many years) for the moment she’s been waiting for.)

 

 

.

 

 

On August 15th at around thirty minutes past noon he plunges scissors into his throat and opens his eyes to see _her_ once more. Eyes glowing the vibrant red he remembers from a dream oh so long ago.

She smiles at him sadly, head turned as if trying to hold back tears and he wants to scream, wants to let her know that she has nothing to be sorry for when it’s all his fault. But her expression shifts and then he knows that’s not what she’s apologizing for.

“Please,” he begs, words spilling from his lips as he stumbles towards her, “Please don’t leave me. Not again, don’t leave me behind.”

He doesn’t know where this is, why he’s here, but he knows he doesn’t want to leave –not while she’s right here in front of him. There’s nothing outside of here to return to, no one waiting for him outside these four walls he’s dreamed of so often.

But she does, and so does he and everything around him. Still, for just that one moment of seeing her – _the real her_ – was almost worth it.

On August 15th, a bit longer than thirty minutes past noon Shintaro Kisaragi’s worthless, dreadful, disgusting life ends.

 

.

 

 

~~(On August 15 th, at around thirty past noon a gunshot leaves another him (the same him) dead, and he opens his eyes to see _her_ once again. Her expression sheepish as she apologises and a part of him wants to laugh, feeling for a moment as if perhaps nothing ever changed.~~

~~He smiles at her, real and warm in a way it never was when she was still alive. He offers it as a thanks, to her, to all of them, for what they’ve done and how far he comes. She smiles back and it feels like validation, like a weight off his shoulders, like everything might actually finally be alright.~~

~~On August 15 th, a bit longer than thirty minutes past noon Shintaro Kisaragi opens his eyes (red, red, eyes) and remembers. What was, what has been, and what could be. He remembers, and he promises to remember for as long as it takes to make everything okay again.)~~

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

If the clock were to rewind (but not far enough to make everything okay), if he could do it all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing if it meant he could see her one last time.

Because those boring days he lived through, he’d kill them again and again if it brought him back to her.

 

And every single time, it would be worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> *According to the wiki Shintaro's canon IQ is 168, it's lower here because he's younger and IQ can fluctuate with age, but also relatively close because it doesn't change too much over your life most of the time, and gets more stable the older you are.  
> Also I couldn't find a canon age for when their dad dies? Just that it's before Momo enters middle school so shes like 9 at the time of his death in this fic.
> 
> Funfact: on word this fic comes up to 4444 words! How fitting for this depressing mess.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> -  
> [tumblr](https://twinsky.tumblr.com/)


End file.
